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From World War to Cold War
By: Allison Sheets
Adapted from a presentation by Alli Sheets 2012
Aftermath of War
• WWII killed as many as 75 million people
around the world
– In Europe about 38 million people lost their lives,
many of them civilians
– More than 22 million people from the Soviet
Union died
• Investigation brought new atrocities to light
– The Nazi nightmare in Europe
– The Japanese brutality in Asia
Horrors of the Holocaust
• Not until after war did the Allies fully understand
the inhumanity and misery of the Holocaust
• United States General, Dwight Eisenhower, visited
the camps
– Was stunned to come “face to face with indisputable
evidence of Nazi brutality and ruthless disregard of
every sense of decency.”
• Rudolf Hoess, Nazi commander at Auschwitz
– admitted supervising the killing of some two and a
half million people, not counting those who died of
disease or starvation
War Crimes Trials
• At wartime meetings, Allies agreed the Axis
leaders should be tried for “crimes against
humanity”
– 177 Germans and Austrians were tried, and 142 found
guilty
– Some top Nazis received death sentences, others
imprisoned
– Similar war crimes trials were held in japan and Italy
• The trials showed that political and military
leaders could be held accountable for actions in
wartime
Allied Occupation
• The trials also discredited the Nazi, fascist, and militarist
ideologies that had led to the war
• People still had disturbing questions
– What made the Nazi horrors possible?
– Why had ordinary people in Germany, Poland, France, and elsewhere accepted and even
collaborated in Hitler’s final solution”?
– How could the world prevent the rise of future dictators?
• The U.S. felt strengthening democracy would ensure
tolerance and peace
• Western Allies built new government with democratic
constitutions to protect the rights of all citizens
• In German School, Nazi textbooks and courses were
replaced with a new curriculum teaching democratic
principles
The United Nations
• WWII Allies set up an international organization to ensure
peace
– In April 1945, delegates from 50 nations met in san Francisco to
draft a charter for the United Nations
• The UN’s work would go far beyond peacekeeping
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Preventing outbreak of disease
Improving education
Protecting refugees
Aiding nations to develop economically
• UN agencies have provided help for millions of people
around the world
– World health Organization, Food and Agricultural organization
Growing differences
• By 1945 the wartime alliance was crumbling
• Confliction ideologies and mutual distrust
soon led to the conflict known as the cold War
– The Cold War was a state of tension and hostility
among nations, without armed conflict between
the major rivals
Origins of the Cold War
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Stalin had two goals in Eastern Europe
– Wanted to spread communism into the areas
– Wanted to create a buffer zone of friendly governments as a defense against Germany
At wartime conferences, Stalin tried to persuade the West to accept soviet influence in
Eastern Europe
– Bluntly stated “Whoever occupies a territory also imposes his own social system.
Everyone imposes his own system as far as his armies can reach. It cannot be
otherwise.”
The U.S. was not consulting the soviet Union about peace terms of Italy or Japan, defeated
and occupied by American and British troops
Russia would determine the fate of the Eastern European lands overrun by the Red Army on
its way to Berlin
Roosevelt and Churchill rejected Stalin’s view, made him promise “free elections”
– Stalin ignored pledge, and destroyed rival political parties and even assassinated
democratic leaders
– By 1948, Stalin had installed pro-soviet communist governments throughout Eastern
Europe
A Divided Europe
• In the West , the “iron curtain” became a
symbol of the Cold War
– Expressed the growing fear of communism
– Described the division of Europe into “eastern”
and “western” blocs
• In the East were the soviet-dominated,
communist countries of Eastern Europe
• In the West were the western democracies,
led by the U.S.
New Conflicts Develop
• To deal with the treat of communism, the U.S.
abandoned its traditional isolationism
– Became the leading role on the world stage
• Stalin showed his aggressive intentions
– In Greece, Stalin backed communist rebels who were
fighting to overturn a right-wing monarchy supported
by Britain
– By 1947, Britain could no longer afford to defend
Greece
– Stalin was also menacing Turkey in the Dardanelles,
the strait linking the Russian Black Sea coasts and the
Mediterranean
Truman Doctrine
• On March 12, 1947, Truman outlined a new policy to
Congress
• The Truman doctrine, would guide the U. S for decades
– The Americans would resist soviet expansion in Europe or
elsewhere in the world
• Truman sent military and economic aid and advisers to Greece and
Turkey so that they could withstand the communist threat
– Rooted in the idea of containment, limiting communism to
the areas already under Soviet control
• George Kennan, believed communism would eventually destroy
itself
• Stalin, saw containment as “encirclement” by the capitalist world
that wanted to isolate the soviet Union
The Marshall Plan
• Postwar hunger and poverty made western European lands
fertile ground for communist ideas
• To Strengthen democratic governments, the U.S. offered an
aid package, called the Marshall Plan
– Funneled food and economic assistance to Europe to help
countries rebuild
– Helped war shattered Europe recover rapidly
• President Truman also offered aid to the Soviet Union and
its satellites, dependent states, in Eastern Europe
– Stalin saw it as a trick to win Eastern Europe over to capitalism
and democracy
– Forbade Eastern European countries to accept American aid,
promising help form the Soviet Union in its place
Divisions in Germany
• The soviet Union dismantled factories and
other resources in Germany’s occupation zone
and used them to help rebuild Russia
– France, Britain, and the U.S. encouraged Germany
to rebuild businesses and industries
• German became a divided nation
– West Germany, allowed the people to write their
own constitution and regain self-government
– East Germany, The Soviet Union installed a
communist government tied to moscow
Berlin Airlift
• Stalin’s resentment towards Western moves to rebuild
Germany as a democracy trigged a crisis over Berlin
• Berlin was occupied by 4 Allied Nations even though it
was completely inside East Germany
• Stalin attempted in 1948 to force the other Allied
Nations out of Berlin by sealing off every railroad and
highway into the western sectors of Berlin
• Western Nations responded by round-the-clock air
drops into West Berlin, including food and fuel. This
continued for more than a year.
• The Soviets eventually dropped the blockade, but the
crisis deepened hostilities between the West and East.
Military Alliances
• With tensions high between the East and West 2
Military Alliances formed
• 1949-The United States, Canada, Great Britain,
and 8 other European countries formed NATONorth Atlantic Treaty Organization, members said
they would help if any were attacked
• 1955-The Soviet Union along with 7 satellite
countries [Eastern Block countries controlled by
the USSR] formed the Warsaw Pact, this was to
oppose NATO but moreover a way to control the
countries by the USSR [Soviet Union]
The Arms Race
• Each side in the Cold War armed itself to
withstand an attack
• By 1949 both sides had Nuclear weapons and
spent the next 40 years trying to get a leg up
on the other, costing each side billions of
dollars
• Churchill warned of this “Balance of Terror”
but it did nothing to stop it from happening
The Propaganda War
• Both the West and East participated in a
propaganda war
• The United States spoke of defending
capitalism and democracy against communism
and totalitarianism
• The Soviet Union claimed the moral high
ground in the struggle against western
imperialism
• Both sides, though, sought World Power